F 1249 
.D56 
Copy 1 



DIB^FICULTIES 



MEXICO AND GUATEMALA. 



PROPOSED MEDIATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 



SOME OFFICIAL DOODMENrS. 



NEW YOKK. 

1882. 



:\ 



DIFFICULTIES 








MEXICO AND GUATEMALA. 



PROPOSED MEDIATION OF THE UNITED STATES. 



SOME OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS. 



NEW YORK. 

1882. 




Digitized by the Internet Arciiive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/difficultiesbetw01mexi 



DOCUMENT No. I. 



Mr. Blaine ta Mr. Morgan. 



G. No. 138. 



Department of State, Washington, June 16, 1881. 

Philip H. Morgat^, Esquire^ etc., etc.^ etc. 

Sir : In my instructions of the 1st instant and to^ 
day, I have so clearly amplified the spirit of good-will 
wliicli animates this government toward that of Mexi- 
co, that I am sure no room for doubt can remain as 
to the sincerity of our friendship. Believing that this 
friendship and the frankness which has always dis- 
tinguished the policy of this country toward its 
neighbors warrant the tender of amicable counsel 
when occasion therefor shall appear, and deeming 
such counsel due to our recognized impartiality, and 
to the position of the United States as the founder 
and, in some sense, the guarantor and guardian of re- 
publican principles on the American continent, it 
seems proper now to instruct you touching a point 
upon which we feel some natural concern. I refer to 
the question of boundaries and territorial jurisdiction 
pending between Mexico and Guatemala. 

In the time of the Empire the forces of Iturbide 
overran a large part of the territory of what now 
constitutes Centi-al America, which had then recently 



thrown otf the Spanish domination. The changing 
fortunes of war resulted in the withdrawal of Mexican 
forces from most of that region, except the important 
provinces of Soconusco and Chiapas, which remained- 
under their control. Since that time the boundaries 
between the two countries have never been adjusted 
upon a satisfactory basis. Mexico, become a republic, 
did not forego claims based on the imperial policy of 
conquest and absorption, while Guatemala, resisting 
jurther progress of Mexican arras, and disputing step 
by step the conquest already made, has never been 
able to come to a decision with her more powerful 
neighbor concerning the relative extension of their 
furisdiction in the disputed strip of territory lying 
between the Gulf of Tehuantepec and the peninsula 
of Yucatan. 

Under these circumstances the Government of 
Guatemala has made a formal application to the 
President of the United States to lend his good offices 
toward the restoration of a better state of feeling be 
tween the two republics. This application is made in 
frank and conciliatory terms, as to the natural protec- 
tor of the rights and national integrity of the repub- 
lican forms of government existing so near our shores, 
and to which we are bound by so many ties of history 
and of material interest. 

This government can do no less than give friendly 
and considerate heed to the representations of Guate- 
mala, even as it would be glad to do were the appeal 
made by Mexico in the interest of justice and a better 
understanding. 

The events, fresh in the memory of the living 
generation of Mexicans, when the moral and material 
support of the United States, although then engaged 



in a desperate domestic struggle, was freely lent to 
avert the danger witli wliich a foreign empire threat- 
ened the national life of the Mexican Republic, afford 
a gratifying proof of the purity of motives and be- 
nevolence of disposition with which the United States 
regard all that concerns the welfare and existence of 
its sister republics of the continent. 

It is alleged, on behalf of Gruatemala, that diplo- 
matic efforts to come to a better understanding with 
Mexico have proved unavailing ; that under a partial 
and preliminary accord, looking to the ascertainment 
of the limits in dispute, the Guatemalan surveying 
parties sent out to study the land, with a view to pro- 
posing a basis of definitive settlement, have been im- 
prisoned by the Mexican authorities ; that Guatemalan 
agents for the taking of a census of the inhabitants of 
the territory in question have been dealt with in like 
summary manner ; and, in fine, that the Government 
of Mexico has, slowly but steadily, encroached upon 
the bordering country heretofore held by Guatemala, 
substituting the local authorities of Mexico for those 
already in possession, and so widening the area in 
contention. 

It is not the present province of the Government 
of the United States to express an opinion as to the 
extent of either the Guatemalan or the Mexican claim 
to this region. 

It is not a self-constituted arbitrator of the desti- 
nies of either country, or of both, in this matter. 

It is simply the impartial friend of both, ready to 
tender frank and earnest counsel touching anything 
which may menace the peace and prosperity of its 
neighbors. It is, above all, anxious to do any and 
everything which will tend to make stronger the 



natural union of the republics of the continent in the 
face of the tendencies of other and distant forms of 
government to influence the internal affairs of Spanish 
America. 

It is especially anxious, in the pursuance of this 
great policy, to see the Central American Republics 
more securely united than they have been in the past, 
in protection of their common interests, which inter- 
ests are, in their outward relations, identical in prin- 
ciple with those of Mexico and of the United States. 
It feels that everything which may lessen the good 
will and harmony so much to be desired between the 
Spanish Republics of the Isthmus must in the end 
disastrously affect their mutual well-being. 

The responsibility for the maintenance of this 
common attitude of united strength is, in the Presi- 
dent's conception, shared by all, and rests no less upon 
the strong States than upon the weak. 

Without, therefore, in any way, prejudging the 
contention between Mexico and Guatemala, but 
acting as the unbiased counselor of both, the Presi- 
dent deems it is his duty to set before the Government 
of Mexico his conviction of the danger which would 
ensue to the principles which Mexico has so signally 
and successfully defended in the past should disre- 
spect be shown to the boundaries which separate her 
from her weaker neighbors, or should the authority of 
force be resorted to in the establishment of rights over 
territory which they claim, without the conceded jus- 
tification of her just title thereto. And especially 
would the President regard as an unfriendly act 
toward the cherished plan of upbuilding strong re- 
publican governments in Spanish America, if Mexico^ 
whose power and generosity should be alike signal in 



such a case, shall seek or permit any misunderstanding 
with Guatemala when the path toward a pacific avoid- 
ance of trouble is at once so easy and so imperative 
an international duty. 

You are directed to seek an interview with Senor 
Mariscal, in which to possess him with the purport of 
this instruction. In doing so, your judgment and dis- 
cretion may have full scope to avoid any misunder- 
standing on his part of the spirit of friendly counsel 
which prompts the President's course. Should Senor 
Mariscal evince a disposition to become more inti- 
mately acquainted with the President's views after 
your verbal exposition thereof, you are at liberty to 
read this dispatch to him, and, should he so desire, to 
give him a copy, 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

(Signed) JAMES G. BLAINE. 



DOCUMENT No. U. 



Conference between Mr. P. H. Morgan and Sr. Don 
Ignacio Mariscal. 

MEMOEANDUM. 

(Translation.) 

On the 9tli instant, the Honorable Minister of the 
United States, after requesting a special interview 
with the undersigned Minister of Foreign Affairs in 
order to discuss an important subject, visited the For- 
eign Office, and began the interview by giving the 
undersigned full assurances of the friendly spirit cher- 
ished by his government respecting Mexico, alluding, 
among other matters, to the note of the Honorable 
Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine, of which he had a few 
days before given a copy to the undersigned, and in 
which a similar friendly spirit was manifest. He 
added that, in the subject which he was about to in- 
troduce, his government by no means pretended to 
intrude in an officious manner, nor had it any other 
interest than a desire for the peace and harmony 
which should prevail between neighboring and sister 
nations, for the credit and the advancement of the re- 
publican institutions they had both adopted — institu- 
tions of which the consolidation in this New World 



could not but interest the United States as being their 
originators upon this continent;' that they did not on 
that account assume to meddle in the internal govern- 
ment or in the mutual relations of the other American 
republics, whose prosperity they sincerely desired, 
without pretending to stimulate it by any other means 
than by their own example, or, when circumstances 
may seem to require it, by giving friendly counsel 
which it was hoped would be considered as disinter- 
ested as it really is, and not as having emanated from 
any selfish or interested motive. 

When Mr. Morgan observed that the undersigned 
manifested his full conviction of the friendly senti- 
ments which he had expressed in the name of his 
government, he added these words : " All that I have 
said to you will be found better expressed, in relation 
to the subject now to be presented, in the note which 
I will proceed to read by order of my government." 
He then read the note addressed to him by the Hon. 
Mr. Blaine, under date of the 16th of June last, in- 
formino; him that the Government of Guatemala had 
formally applied to the President of the United States^ 
soliciting his good offices in order to re-establish be- 
tween the two republics the sentiments of friendship, 
which it was alleged had been interrupted in conse- 
quence of the question of boundary pending between 
them. 

Having finished the reading of this note, Mr. Mor- 
gan, after offering a copy thereof to the undersigned, 
who expressed a desire to possess it, added that, if the 
Government of Mexico accepted the decision of the 
boundary question with Guatemala by means of arbi- 
tration, he thought that the Government of the United 
States would consent to become the arbitrator, and 



10 

that the decision it might pronounce in such case 
wouM certainly be impartial and just, since it had no 
other interest than to re-establish harmony and good 
understanding between Mexico and her southern neigh- 
bor. Entering upon various considerations concerning 
the evils of Avar, Mr. Morgan observed that, even if 
Mexico slioiild be victorious in a war with Guatemala, 
as she could not fail to be, in view of the great superi- 
ority of her elements, she would nevertheless suffer 
grave injuries, and perchance experience a paralysis of 
the movement of internal improvements lately begun, 
besides affording the evil example of deciding, by force 
of arms, the discussions between two sister republics. 

The undersigned replied that he was satisfied that 
the sentiment which guided the Government of the 
United States in the step then taken was friendly and 
loyal, but at once observed that it had not been cor- 
rectly infoi-med by the Government of Guatemala. He 
farther said that he would waive, for the time being, 
the consideration of various inaccuracies, both upon 
matters of history and upon recent events, contained 
in the note of the Honorable Secretary of State, which 
were doubtless due to one-sided allegations on the part 
of the Government of Guatemala, and to the fact that, 
in general, the history of Mexico is not well known, 
reserving the privilege of preparing, within a few days, 
a memorandum in whicli, besides stating what had 
passed in the said interview, he would rectify the in- 
accuracies above mentioned, and could take more fully 
into consideration some of the ideas expressed by the 
Honorable Secretary of State. 

He would consequently limit himself at that time 
to the statement that force or conquest had never been 
the basis of the rights alleged by Mexico to a certain 



11 

portion of her territory claimed by Guatemaln, as upon 
a future occasion lie would demonstrate. The com- 
plaints of the Guatemalans, he added, are not sincere, 
and the government of General Barrios knew very 
well how different are the facts of the case from the 
statemeuts made to the government at Washington. 
Even before consulting the President, he could assure 
Mr. Morgan that the good offices of his government 
were received with high esteem by the Government 
of Mexico. There is as yet, he added, no motive what- 
ever for the fear that the latter will appeal to force to 
resolve the boundary question with Guatemala, which 
for many years has been under pacific and patient dis- 
cussion, the Mexican Government having always been 
the promoter of the discussion, and of its solution by 
friendly measures. 

The recent events of which the Guatemalan Govern- 
ment complained had been the subject of discussions 
in which the arguments of Mexico had not been an- 
swered, the last notes of the Mexican Government 
having usually been left without reply. The tactics 
of the Government of Guatemala had consisted in ap- 
pealing, for lack of reasons, to delays and evasions. 
The present state of the question is, that the survey 
of the frontier by commissions of engineers appointed 
by the two governments is still pending. The ap- 
pointment of these commissions was made by virtue 
of a convention promoted by Mexico, in which was 
stipulated the suspension of negotiations upon bound- 
aries until the said frontier could be surveyed, and 
certain points which formed the basis of discussion 
could be astronomically determined. 

The period fixed by the convention expired defini- 
tively before the scientific commissions had concluded 



12 

their labors, and Mexico, wliicli has always wished to 
attain a truthful and conscientious decision, is laboring 
for the renewal of the said convention, in order to con. 
tinue the boundary survey, without which it would 
seem that there is no possibility of rationally continu- 
ing the discussion, or of arriving at an agreement, or 
of an intelligent decision of the questions at issue, by 
a third party. 

This will pi'ove to Mr. Morgan two things : first, 
that the Mexican Government positively desires to 
bring the question of boundary to a just and pacific 
conclusion, and second, that it is not possible at pres- 
ent even to say whether this question, at least in part, 
may become a proper one fo:- an arbitration. 

As to the other part, i. e., the perfect title of Mexi- 
co to the state of Chiapas, including the department 
or district of Soconusco, of which it has been in pos- 
session for so many years, the Mexican Government 
has several times declared that it does not and can not 
decorously admit any question. What it has consent- 
ed to discuss among the claims of Guatemala, and for 
which it has been surveying and mapping out the 
frontier, is the matter of the boundaries of Chiapas 
and Soconusco, on the Guatemala side. But it may 
readily be seen that this can not yet give occasion to 
an arbitration, since the data have not yet been ob- 
tained which have been thought indispensable for the 
decision of the points at issue. 

Mexico is very far from absolutely refusing arbitra- 
tion, but does not think it possible at present, for the 
reasons just mentioned, and reserves her decision as to 
accepting it in the future, concerning certain points on 
which it might be useful. If it were not for these 
reasons, she would be glad to take into consideration^ 



13 

even before a formal proposition (which has not yet 
been made), the mediation of the United States with 
the character of an arbitration in her differences with 
Guatemala, for she would have the greatest confidence 
in the impartiality and justice of this mutual friend of 
both parties. 

The interview was concluded by Mr. Morgan prom- 
ising to send a copy of the note which he had read, 
and by the undersigned promising to prepare the 
present memorandum, which should contain, in addi- 
tion to the foregoing, certain observations suggested 
by the contents of the said note. 

Examining this important dispatch, of which a 
copy was sent to this Ministry the same day, attention 
is at once drawn, since it shows a strong desire to 
prove a just and friendly intention, to the paragraph 
drawn up in the following terms : " Events fresh in 
the memory of the present generation of Mexicans, 
which occurred at a time when the moral and material 
support of the United States, although engaged in a 
tremendous civil war, was amply afforded in order to 
avoid the danger with which a foreign empire men- 
aced the life of the Mexican Republic, offer a satisfac- 
tory proof of the purity of motives and of the friendly 
disposition with which the United States regarded all 
that relates to the prosperity and the subsistence of 
the sister republics on this continent." 

In fact, Mexico can never forget what was wit- 
nessed by the present generation of Mexicans as re- 
ferred to by the Hon. Mr. Blaine, i. e., that the United 
States lent their generous moral support, when, being 
invaded by a foreign army, her people struggled alone 
and without resources from abroad against a Euro- 
pean monarch and his instrument in this country, who 



14 

was supported by certain misguided elements at home. 
Nor will she forget that the sentiment of the Ameri- 
can people during that crisis clearly showed that, if 
the United States had not been engaged in a civil 
war of vast proportions, the support given to Mexico 
would have been more than moral, and would have 
sufficed to terminate the struggle some years earlier. 

In the same note it is stated that the forces of the 
Emperor Iturbide having occupied a large portion of 
the territory of Central America, the fortune of war 
forced them to abandon all that territory except Soco- 
nusco and Chiapas, and that Mexico, after becoming a 
republic, did not desist from reclamations founded 
upon the imperial policy of absorption and conquest. 
In this there are some historical errors, and especially 
one which is due, as already stated, to one-sided alle- 
gations or to the fact that, unfortunately, the history 
of Mexico is not well known. Even during the em- 
pire of Iturbide it was not conquest but the free-will 
of the inhabitants of Chiapas and Soconusco which 
determined their annexation to Mexico, as well as that 
of all the provinces of Central America except Salva- 
dor. In the use of the same liberty, they afterward 
separated from this country and formed with Guate- 
mala a republic ; always excepting Chiapas and So- 
conusco, which, after Mexico became a rej^ublic, re 
newed their determination to remain incorporated 
therewith. 

As it is not possible here to recount the history of 
what occurred, it will suffice to mention that, on ac- 
count of the ever-renewed claims of Guatemala, there 
have been published very serious and carefully studied 
treatises with the object of proving the right which 
Mexico originally acquired to this portion of her pres- 



15 

ent territory, basing it, not upon conquest, but upon 
tte will of tlie inbabitants, tbe proofs of wliicb may 
be found in unquestionable documents whicli have 
been published. Among these publications are those 
respectively made by Don Manuel Larrainzar and Don 
Matias Eomero, persons well acquainted with the facts 
concerning Chiapas and Soconusco, since the former is 
a native of that state and the latter has resided in 
Soconusco, where he had to abandon his property, 
which was devastated by Guatemalan invaders. But, 
without alluding to the contents of the said publica- 
tions, it will be understood how inaccurate are the 
attacks made upon the right of Mexico to these re- 
gions which form a state of the Union, by simply ex- 
amining the long and weighty note which Senor La- 
fragua, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed to the 
Minister of Guatemala in this capital, under date of 
October 9, 1875, adjoining to it several documents of 
a conclusive tenor. 

This note, which has been circulated in a printed 
form, and in which the original rights of Mexico to 
Soconusco and Chiapas, now placed beyond doubt by 
a possession of more than thirty and fifty years re- 
spectively, are victoriously illustrated and proved ; 
this note, which should have given rise to a serious 
discussion, has remained up to the present time un- 
answered, as the Government of Guatemala habitually 
leaves those which it can not answer. 

The brief summary of that extended note will 
show by itself that the titles of Mexico have not con- 
sisted of absorption and conquest, as the Hon. Mr. 
Blaine has been led to believe by means of calumnies 
against this republic. The closing words of that doc- 
ument are as follows : " Summing up the argument 



16 

of the present note, the following points have been 
demonstrated: First. Chiapas was a province similar 
to the othei's which formed the captaincy-general of 
Guatemala. Second. Chiapas, on the 3d day of Sep- 
tember, 1821, freely separated from Guatemala and 
united with Mexico. Third. Chiapas, on the 12th day 
of September, 1824, again joined the United States of 
Mexico by the free choice of a majority of her inhabit- 
ants (it having been previously shown that the voting 
took place without the presence of Mexican forces in 
any part of the State, and that there was a large ma- 
jority in favor of Mexico). Fourth. Soconusco, in 
1821, was d^partido of the lutendency of Chiapas, and 
as such united with the Mexican Empire. Fifth. So- 
conusco, in 1821, voted freely in favor of union with 
Mexico on the 3d day of May. Sixth. The Act drawn 
up at Tapachula on the 24tli day of July, 1824, was a 
revolutionary and illegal procedure. Seventh. Central 
America recognized the Supreme Junta of Chiapas, 
and agreed to respect its decision," etc. Without 
copying the entire summary, the preceding will con- 
vince the reader that the Mexican Government has 
never based its original rights to Chiapas and Soco- 
nusco upon conquest. 

As to recent events, the points of complaint against 
Mexico presented by the Government of Guatemala to 
the Government of the United States are four in num- 
ber : 

First. That the diplomatic efforts made to reach a 
settlement with Mexico have been fruitless. 

Second. That there exists a preliminary and partial 
agreement for the purpose of ascertaining what are the 
true limits ; and that the Guatemalan commissions of 
exploration sent to survey the region in order to pre- 



17 

pare the basis for a definitive settlement were impris- 
oned by the Mexican authorities. 

Third. That the agents of Guatemala charged to 
take a census of the territory in question were treated 
in the same manner. 

Fourth. That the Mexican Government has cau- 
tiously but constantly invaded the frontier district 
which had heretofore been in the possession of Guate- 
mala, replacing the local authorities which were there 
existing by those of Mexico, thus augmenting the area 
of the disputed territory. 

It will be convenient to reply to these points in 
the same order. 

I. Diplomatic efforts for the settlement of limits 
with Guatemala have always and exclusively been 
initiated by Mexico. In 1832 the Mexican Govern- 
ment sent Don Manuel Diez de Bonilla as Envoy and 
Minister Plenipotentiary, and in 1853 Don Juan N. 
de Pereda with the same character, without obtaining 
any result. Senor Pereda remained in Guatemala un- 
til the year 1858. In the various interviews which he 
had with Don Manuel Pavon, Minister of Foreign 
Affairs of that republic, that gentleman constantly 
refused to celebrate a treaty of limits, and said that 
Guatemala proposed, in the pending negotiations with 
Mexico, to simply recognize the statu quo of the fron- 
tier between the two countries without any alteration. 

Senor Pereda had to suspend his official relations 
with the Government of Guatemala on account of the 
refusal of the latter to treat concerning limits, and 
because the said government, in a discourteous and 
offensive manner, refused to grant the internment of 
several emigrados from Mexico, who were conspiring 
against the peace of this republic. - 
2 



18 

The question of limits was not again discussed 
until October, 1873, when Seno:' Lafragua, Minister 
of Foreign Affairs, addressed a note to Senor Garcia 
Granados, Charge d' Affaires of Guatemala, indicating 
the necessity that the question should he concluded. 
For thnt purpose he invited the Government of Gua- 
temala to appoint a plenipotentiary to open the nego- 
tiations in this capital. 

Senor Uriarte, the new Minister of Guatemala, 
replied after some months, in July, 1874, after Senor 
Lafragua had asked him by note whether the said in- 
vitation w^as accepteil, that he was provided with a 
full power to enter upon negotiations. 

On the 21st of August, Senor Uriarte presented a 
memorandum to serve as a basis for discussion. After 
various conferences, Senor Lafragua replied to the 
memorandum, by a note dated October 9, 1875, with 
which he inclosed a draft of a treaty of limits between 
the two republics. 

This important note, already alluded to, has re- 
mained without reply, as has also been previously 
remarked. 

In July, 1877, neTotiatio"-s were resumed between 
Senor Vallarta, as Plenipotentiary of Mexico, and 
Seiior Uriarte, Minister of Guatemala. The result 
was the convention of December 7th of that year. 

II. The note of Mi-, Blaine alludes to this conven- 
tion. By it, as alread\' indicated, there was created a 
mixed commission of Mexican and Guatemalan engi- 
neers, charged with making a survey, forming plans, 
and fixing astronomically certain points in order to 
advance the knowledge of the question at issue, and 
afterward continue the discussion upon the limits of 
the two republics". 



19 

In Article X it was stipulated that, during the sus- 
pension of negotiations upon limits, the high contract- 
ing powers would religiously respect and cause to be 
respected the actual possession, not raising or allowing 
to be raised any question relative to boundary-marks, 
and preventing every act of hostility on the part either 
of the authorities or citizens of the two republics. 

The commissioners met at Tapachula, November 
18, 1878, and began their operations. 

On the 26th of January, 1880, three engineers of 
the Guatemalan commission appeared in the vicinity 
of Cuilco Viejo, a village of Soconusco, accompanied 
by a number of Indians, and placed there a cross. 
The local authorities believed that this act was in- 
tended to advance the boundary-post of Pinabete, re- 
cognized as the limit between the two republics and 
situated eight leagues farther north, as had been done 
years before by the inhabitants of Tacand, a village 
belonging to Guatemala. Under this belief they ques- 
tioned the said engineers, and not receiving satisfac- 
tory explanations of the act, nor being shown any 
document proving their character as commissioners, 
the said authorities arrested them and sent them to 
Tapachula. There they were immediately set at lib- 
-erty by the political chief, who gave them the fullest 
reparations. This is the only case of imprisonment of 
engineers which Guatemala can cite, and as to this 
incident that Government appeared to be satisfied. 
The Mexican Government then believed that the local 
authorities had acted erroneously, but later acts of the 
Government of Guatemala show that it had really 
been intended to change the landmarks. 

III. A motive similar to the foregoing occasioned 
the arrest of the agents of Guatemala, to which allu- 



20 

sion has been made. In December, 1880, a commis- 
sion, composed of the alcalde of Tacand, and four 
other persons, proceeded to register the inhabitants of 
some ranchei'ias, which, although a league distant 
from the Mexican villao-e of Cuilco Vie'.o, form an in- 
tegral part thereof. They went — not, as alleged, to 
take a census in disputed territory — but to exercise 
acts of jurisdiction in the place, in order afterward to 
adduce them as a proof of possession by Guatemala. 
It is to be noted that the inhabitants of Tacand, whose 
alcalde is the present subject of discussion, were the 
same ^vho at a former time advanced the boundary-post 
of Pinabete, and that the rancj^erias in question would 
have been on Guatemalan territory if the said land- 
mark bad remained where it was tben placed, on 
which spot tbe cross was afterward raised by the 
Guatemalan eno-ineers. The said commissioners, who 
thus violated the convention binding them to respect 
tlie actual possession, were therefore justly arrested, 
and turned over to the District Judge, in order that 
he might act in accordance with the laws of Mexico. 

The Minister of Guatemala complained of this act, 
alleging that those rancherias belonged and had always 
belonged to his country. In the reply made to him, 
under date of the 27th of January last, the inaccuracy 
of his assertions was proved by showing that those 
rancherias were within the provisional limits of Mexi- 
co, and that they belong to this republic, even accord- 
ing to the official map of Guatemala. In refuting the 
charges made by Seiior Herrera in his note, against 
the Mexican authorities, it was shown by recent facts 
that the abuses have been on the part of the Guate- 
malan authorities. 

As Senor Herrera based the title of bis country to 



21 

the said points on the fact that there were certain as- 
sistant alcaldes appointed by the authority at Sibinal, 
a village of Guatemala, the undersigned showed that 
the appointment had been iirst made after tlie signa- 
ture of the Convention which bound the two coun- 
tries to respect the statu quo in regard to limits, and 
that consequently it only proved that Guatemala had 
violated her eno;a2:ement. Senor Herrera confined 
himself to stating that he would inform his govern- 
ment of this note, and it has thus far remained with- 
out reply. 

IV. The accusations against Mexico under this 
fourth heading, i. e., a general charge of continual Mexi- 
can invasions of Guatemalan territory, are not only 
entirely false, but inconceivably audacious. There ex- 
ists a plan of Soconusco made by Don Jose E. Ibarra, 
carefully formed, as is shown by the geographical and 
statistical notices of that department given in the mar- 
gin. On it are marked in red ink the ancient limits, 
and in green those which seem to be recognized in re- 
cent times. The space between the two lines marks 
the advances made by Guatemala, and at the end of 
the marginal notices the dates are specified when they 
were effected. These invasions have been continued 
recently; the archives of the Department of Foreign 
Affairs are full of data upon those which have oc- 
curred since 1870. 

Without; being, perhaps, among the most notable, 
one of these invasions was for the purpose of destroy- 
ing the property of Don Matias Romero, as already 
indicated. Senor Romero, who is well known in 
Washington, where he represented Mexico for several 
years, could not, with all his characteristic modera- 
tion and prudence, prevent Guatemalan Indians, by: 



22 

order of a prefect of that nation, from invading Ida 
lands within the Mexican territory, destroying hia 
property, carrying away prisoner one of his employees^ 
and maltreating others. In November, 1875, a com- 
plaint was presented to the Government of Guatemala 
for this act, but hitherto no reply has been made. On 
the other hand, that government has imputed to Senor 
Romero conflagrations and other crimes within the ter- 
ritory of Guatemala — charges entirely improbable, and 
which that gentleman has, moreover, refuted at length.. 

In the same month and year tlie engineer Don 
Alejandro Prieto, secretary of the Mexican legation 
in Guatemala, made a survey of the frontier by direc- 
tion of Senor Garza, then Mexican minister to that 
government. He made the journey and the survey 
in company with General Barrios, President of Guate- 
mala, as was stated by Senor Garza in a letter ad- 
dressed to Senor Lafragua, and by the Government of 
Chiapas in a dispatch dated November 26, 1875. 
From this visit originated the sketch-map drawn up 
by Prieto, which may be found in this ministry, and 
which, as well from having been prepared under the 
inspection of President Barrios as for other reasons, 
can not be an object of suspicion to Guatemala. 
Upon it is marked the line which is the boundary in 
fact, and on it are also marked the points in dispute. 
To this line, then, must be referred the statu quo stip- 
ulated in the Convention of 1877. Now, the very 
notes of the Minister of Guatemala prove that hia 
Government, far from having respected it, has violated 
it at Touintand, at Las Chicharras, Cuilco Viejo, and 
other points. 

That Government has gone so far as to defend the. 
misdeeds of the Alcalde Meono, who attempted to 



23 

assassinate a Mexican surveyor, and burned rancliOfc; 
within the territory of Mexico. 

It lias done more. In December of last year it 
sent, or permitted to be sent, a force under tlie orders 
of tlie prefect of San Mdrcos (a department of Gua- 
temala), which invaded our territory and destroyed 
the landmark of Pinabete, the same which was de- 
molished by the residents of Tacan^ and which was 
reconstructed shortly afterward. The said prefect 
then hoisted the flag of Guatemala precisely upon the 
cross so mysteriously erected by the Guatemalan en- 
gineers near Ciiilco Viejo. 

Complaint being made at Guatemala of these acts, 
that government refused to give explanations to our 
minister, under the pretext that the subject had to be 
treated in Mexico, because Senor Loaeza had no in- 
structions to receive them. The Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, Senor Montufar, being pressed by our repre- 
sentative, who sent him a copy of a note from the 
undersigned manifesting surprise at such conduct, re- 
plied that the ground where these events took place 
belonged to Guatemala, without giving any reasons 
for such allegation, and overlooking the fact that the 
undersigned, in his note of the 27th of January last, 
to which no reply has been given, had demonstrated 
the contrary. 

Meanwhile the term of the Convention of Decem- 
ber 7, 1877, had expired on December 31, 1879, with- 
out the scientific commissions having concluded their 
labors. The Mexican Government proposed to that of 
Guatemala that the said Convention should be renewed 
for a term long enough to attain the object desired, 
and ordered its engineers to remain on the frontier, as 
in fact they have remained, notwithstanding that the 



24 

Guatemalan engineers were withdrawn by tbeir gov- 
ernment without the formality of advising that of 
Mexico. The Piesident of Guatemala personally in- 
formed our minister that he was willing to renew the 
Convention, and that instructions to that end had 
been sent to Senor Herrera, Minister of Guatemala in 
Mexico. Seiior Herrera, however, considered himself 
for several months without sufficient instructions to 
neo;otiate, alleo^ino- that those received were not suf- 
ticiently explicit. It was only recently (July 11) that 
Senor Herrera, having come to speak with the under- 
signed about the friendly step taken by the Gov- 
ernment of the United States, and the observation 
having been made to him that the Government of 
Guatemala had not yet sent him the instructions 
oifered, made known that he had received them in 
the desired form. 

This conduct of his government, not at all sincere, 
and seemingly incomprehensible, is now explained by 
the step which the President of Guatemala, through 
his representative, has taken toward the Government 
of the United States. President Barrios mshed, as 
may be inferred from the facts, to gain time while he 
applied to a friendly government complaining of inju- 
ries supposed to have been committed by the Govern- 
ment of Mexico, whose conduct he depicted with false 
colors while soliciting the interposition of good offices. 
In this application, he apparently omitted, howevei', 
to state that, at the i-equest of Mexico, the renewal 
of the Convention for the survey of the frontier was 
under advisement, a survey absolutely necessary, as 
declared by both governments, in order to fix the 
international limits, whether by diplomatic negotia- 
tions or other pacific means. 



25 

The omissions and inexactitudes of the govern- 
ment of General Barrios, in its statements to the 
President of the United States, as well as its other 
acts concerning the question of limits with Mexico, 
show its policy upon this subject to be entirely lack- 
ing in sincerity and frankness. 

The facts briefly noted in this memorandum, and 
others which can not here be mentioned, authorize 
the suspicion that the s^id government, in addressing 
the President of the United States, has not really 
desired, as was pretended, to obtain the decision of 
an arbitrator upon the question of limits. It is very 
certain that it can not be ignorant of the impossibility 
for Mexico to admit any discussion of the rights she 
has to Chiapas and Soconusco, forming as they have 
done for many years a State of the Union, an integral 
part of the republic, and that it also understands how 
impossible it is to fix the limits between this State 
and Guatemala, before surveying the region in dis- 
pute, whoever may be the arbitrator charged to ren- 
der such decision. 

The object, then, in pretending to promote an 
arbitration, can not be other than to gain time, as on 
former occasions, to continue the partial invasions and 
enervate the action of the Mexican Government in the 
simple defense of the national territory. 

The undersigned, in order to place upon record 
the facts of the interview with the Honorable Minis- 
ter Morgan, and the observations to which the note of 
the Hon. Mr. Blaine give occasion, has drawn up the 
present memorandum, which he signs for due evi- 
dence thereof. 

(Signed) IGNACIO MARISCAL. 

Mexico, July 25, 1881. 



DOCUMENT No. III. 



THE QUESTION OF LIMITS BETWEEN MEXICO AND GUATE- 
MALA. 

Extracts from a Pamphlet containing the correspondence ex- 
changed in 187 Jf. between the Mmister of Guatemala in 
Mexico^ Mr. Ramon Uriarte^ and the Mexican Minister 
of Foreign Afairs^ Mr. Jose Maria Lafragua. 

(Translation.) 
Legation of Guatemala, Mexico, August 21, 181 1^. 

Sir: As was agreed in olt last conference, I do 
myself the honor to send Your Excellency the inclosed 
memorandum, hoping you will be pleased to appoint 
a day and hour when I may present myself at your 
office to continue the discussion of the project of bases 
for a preliminary convention upon the boundaries 
between Guatemala and Mexico. 

This occasion affords me the pleasure of renewing 
to Your Excellency the assurances of my distinguished 
consideration. 

(Signed) R. URIARTE. 

7!? Eh Excellency, Mr. Josfe MarIa Lafragua, Minister of Foreign 
Affairs oj the Mexican Republic. 



27 

LtGiTioN OF Guatemala, Mexico, August SI, 1874- 

Memorandum 'presented hy the undersigned^ Envoy Extraor- 
dinary and liinister Plenipotentiary of Guatemala, to 
His Excellency Mr. Jose Maria, Lafragua, Minister of 
Foreign Affairs of the Mexican Republic. 

After examining witli tlie greatest care all the doc- 
uments found in the archives of the Legation in my 
charge concerning the various questions pending be- 
tween Guatemala and Mexico, I now fulfill the duty of 
submitting to the enlightened consideration of Your 
Excellency the present memorandum as a basis for the 
conferences begun on the 22d of last July. 

I would waive all mention of the obstacles hitherto 
encountered in bringing to a happy conclusion the treat- 
ies proposed between the two republics, and esj)ecial- 
ly that concerning territorial limits, if it were not for 
the fact that in official documents Guatemala has been 
charged with unwillingness to conclude such treaties. 
This appears from the Memoir presented by Your Ex- 
cellency to the Congress of the Union last year, and 
more explicitly from the documents concerning meas- 
ures proposed for the development of the agricultural 
wealth of Soconusco presented by the Finance Depart- 
ment to the Congress of 1871. In this latter docu- 
ment it is stated that Mexico has always been ready 
to enter into friendly and equitable treaties with Gua- 
temala, but that the latter power has refused to sign 
them under the belief, or at least the hope, of some 
time recovering the state of Chiapas. This is inexact. 
A rapid glance at the protocols of the conferences held 
at different periods between the commissioners of the 
two countries will demonstrate that Guatemala has 
not only been ever ready to negotiate treaties with 
Mexico, but that she has carried her condescension aa 



28 

far as is possible for a nation desirous of the .closest 
harmony with her neighbors, without prejudice to her 
own dignity. 

With respect to the question of limits, for example, 
Guatemala proposed in 1832 the arbitration of a friend- 
ly nation, which was declined by Mexico. Some years 
later, in 1854, Guatemala went to the extreme of re- 
nouncing her indisputable rights to Chiapas and So- 
conusco, without demanding any indemnification, and, 
if the negotiation was not carried out, it was because 
Mexico declined to recognize and pay the debt of 
those states to the ancient " Kingdom of Guate- 
mala." 

Nearly the same thing took place respecting the 
treaties of commerce and extradition of criminals, two 
of which were successively negotiated in 1831 and 
1850, without having been ratified by the Mexican 
Government. 

Guatemala has just given the latest proof of her 
sincere desire to terminate a question which has been 
pending for half a century between the two countries 
by sending the undersigned to this city. If on the 
part of Mexico, then, there exists the same desire, as 
Your Excellency has been 2:)leased to intimate to me, 
nothing will be easier than to draw closer, by means 
of equitable conventions, the ties of friendship and 
fraternity which ought always to bind together two 
neighboring republics which have the same origin and 
identical interests. 

As the first thing to be done is to agree upon a 
preliminary convention to fix the bases according to 
which should be traced the dividing line from the 
<3oasts of the Pacific to those of the Northern Sea, the 
undersigned sees no objection, respecting' the question. 



29 

•of Chiapas, to take as a starting-point the project dis- 
cussed in Guatemala between Messrs. Pavon and Pe- 
reda in 1854. That is to say, that Guatemala will 
recognize the incorporation of that State into the- 
Mexican territory on condition that Mexico will pro-^ 
ceed to settle the debt which that province had con- 
tracted with what was formerly the " Captaincy-Gen- 
eral of Guatemala." 

The case is not the same respecting Soconusco. I 
waive for the present the narration of the acts by vir- 
tue of which that former district of Guatemala now 
forms a part of the United States of Mexico. Force 
does not constitute a title, and if with respect to Chia- 
pas no one can doubt the justice with which Guatemala 
might demand its restitution, in regard to Soconusco 
it is abundantly evident that the violation of the neu- 
trality in which it had been agreed to maintain that 
province can never be for Mexico a title of domain, 
but rather strengthens, in the eyes of international law, 
the titles which Guatemala has ever had for consider- 
ing it an integral part of her territory. But, as I have 
already said, it is not my intention to record the history 
of those unjustifiable acts, and I will only call Your 
Excellency's attention to the difficulties presented by 
the tracing of any dividing line segregating Soconusco 
from the territoi-y of Guatemala. 

The clearer the demarkation of frontiers between 
adjacent countries, the fewer disputes will there be be- 
tween frontier authorities, and all questions originat- 
ing in the lack of precision of the dividing lines will 
be completely obviated. For this reason it has lat- 
terly become the custom among civilized nations to 
adopt, as such boundaries, degrees of longitude or 
latitude. Since this is not possible in the present case 



30 

of the limits between Guatemala and Mexico, the line 
should be drawn as straight as possible, in view of the 
broken character of the region through which it must 
pass. The Department of Soconusco, on the southern 
coast, forms an angle entering the territory of Guate- 
mala, of which the base is the river Clutalapa, pro- 
ceeding from the Bay of Zacapulco as far as the towns 
of Motocinta and Mazapan, and the vertex being 
formed by the mouth of the river Tilapa, in the Bay 
of Ocos. Consequently the base for the deniarkation 
of the line from the Pacific Ocean should be the Bay 
of Zacapulco, tracing thence a straight line to the river 
Dolores, the recognized limit of the state of Chiapas. 
Guatemala could not accept the imperfection of a line 
starting from the Bay of Ocos, going thence north to 
Tajomulco, then receding eastward along the mount- 
ain chain of Tajomulco, and finally descending the 
river Blanco to Mazapan. 

From the river Dolores to the Northern Sea, the 
undersigned proposes for basis for the tracing of aline 
the actual possession, with the understanding that a 
scientific commission should be appointed by agree- 
ment of both governments, in order to make the neces- 
sary surveys, and mark the definitive limits between 
Guatemala and Mexico in accordance with the bases 
above suggssted. 

Respect ng treaties of friendship, commerce, and 
extradition and a postal convention, the undersigned 
abstains from speaking of them in the ])resent memo- 
randum, so as to proceed with order, making due sep- 
aration between the subjects which have been in- 
trusted to him. 

(Signed) R. URIARTE. 



31 

MiNiSTET OF Foreign Affaies, Mexico, October 9, 1875. 

Sie: By direction of the President of the Repub- 
lic, I now proceed to examine the note of Your Ex- 
cellency, dated August 21, 1874, and the accoQipany- 
ing memorandum, on the contents of which I have 
made to Your Excellency some observations in private 
conferences. . . . 

Entering upon the examination of the serious mat- 
ter in question, I must immediately remind you that 
on October 20, 1873, I had the honor to address to 
Mr. Manuel Garcia Granados, then representative of 
Guatemala, the formal declaration that the Govern- 
ment of Mexico does not admit any discussion upon 
the legitimacy of the possession of Chiapas and Soco^ 
nusco by the United States of Mexico. As that note 
was not answered, and since Your Excellency after- 
ward arrived here in the high capacity of Envoy Ex- 
traordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, the Govern- 
ment of Mexico naturally believed that Guatemala 
desisted from the question formerly raised by her as 
to the incorjioration of Chiapas and Soconusco, and 
that the mission of Your Excellency had for object the 
much desired settlement of boundaries. But the note 
and memorandum of Your Excellency reopen this dis- 
cussion, and conclude by proposing to Mexico the loss 
of almost the whole of Soconusco, as well as a part of 
Chiapas and the payment of the debt for which that 
state is alleged to be responsible. 

It would suffice for the Government of Mexico to 
refer to the formal declaration contained in the note 
of October 20, 1873 ; but, with the only object of pre- 
venting that decision from being deemed capricious or 
arbitrary, I proceed to state to Your Excellency the 
reasons which legalize the possession of Chiapas and 



32 

Soconusco, without thereby modifying the sentiments 
expressed in 1873. The present exposition will set 
forth the sum of the rights which Mexico considers 
beyond question, and which she is resolved to sustain 
in the just defense of those important parts of the 
national territory, worthy for a thousand reasons of 
the esteem of our citizens and of the efficacious pro- 
tection of the government. . . . 

It is consequently proved that there were no such 
abuses (as have been alleged by Guatemala) in the 
incorporation of Chiapas and Soconusco ; but even 
admitting, without conceding, that there was any irreg- 
ularity, what does it avail in view of the solemn rati- 
fication based upon the acquiescence of the people of 
Chiapas and Soconusco ? During fifty-one years the 
former, and during thirty-three years the latter,* have 
not made a single protest, have not expressed a sin- 
gle complaint, or manifested any dissatisfaction on ac- 
count of theii' union with Mexico. They have suffered, 
like other Mexicans, the evils of civil war and of for- 
eign invasions, they liave enjoyed the benefits of lib- 
erty and felt the tyranny of dictatorship, and, with 
their talents in council and their blood in battles, have 
contributed to the defense of national interests. 

As a State of the Federal Republic, as a Depai't- 
ment of the Central Republic, Chiapas has remained, 
during the long period of our checkered political life, 
the same province which spontaneously united itself 
to Mexico on the 3d of September, 1821. When, in 
1847, the Federal Government was reduced to a few 
cities, without an army and obliged to yield to the 
terrible law of war, why did Chiapas not separate 

* This was written in 1875. Now, in 1881, the possession by Mexico 
has lasted lifty-seven years in one case and thirty-nine years in the other 



33 

from a nation so prostrated by misfortune ? When, in 
1865, the Federal Government was carried, by public 
misfortune, to Paso del Norte, why did not Chiapas, 
situated at the otlier extremity of the country, at a 
distance of eight hundred leagues, separate from a 
nation almost completely subjugated by a foreign 
power? These and other periods afforded extreme 
facilities for Chiapas, if, in her territory, there had 
existed any sentiment hostile to Mexico, to manifest 
it, or to indicate any desire to abandon the mother- 
country, which she freely adopted as her own, and to 
whose fortunes, prosperous or adverse, she has re- 
mained united with the most perfect liberty. If tbe 
state of Chiapas were situated in the center of the 
republic, it might be said, carrying suspicion beyond 
tlie limits of probability, tliat ber hands were tied by 
her very position, since any movement on her part 
might be suppressed in a single day. But, being situ- 
ated at the extremity of the country, and separated 
from the center by three hundred leagues of really 
difficult roads, her unshaken fidelity is not the effect 
of fear, but the worthy fruit of a sentiment as noble 
as it is spontaneous. 

What reasons, said I in the note dated October 
20, 1873, can be alleged in presence of so firm a will? 
What title can avail more than so constant a fidelity ? 
What right more solid than that founded upon such a 
loyal and zealous patriotism ? In fact, a simple doubt 
would be an offense, the more cruel when more unde- 
served, and this is one reason why the Government of 
Mexico can not admit any discussion upon the posses- 
sion of Chiapas and Soconusco.* 

* There are several reasons why Mexico could not, even if she would, 
enter into any discussion upon the legitimacy of her long-continued pos- 
3 



34 

Before entering upon the examination of the pro- 
ject of limits, I ought to reply to a charge unjustly 
made against the Republic of Mexico, attributing to 
its reluctance the delays experienced in this important 
business. From 1825 until the present day, Mexico 
has constantly proposed the immediate tracing of the 
limits. This appears from the notes of Mr. Alaman 
and the protocols of Messrs. Manuel Diez de Bonilla 
and Juan Nepomuceno de Pereda, envoys of Mexico in 
that republic. Guatemala, on the contrary, has ever 
avoided the tracing of limits, desiring the maintenance 
of the statu quo, and thus postponing indefinitely the 
solution of so important an affair. 

These official documents fully prove who has been 
at fault in this delay. Mexico has constantly sought 
for the tracing of the limits, which she has considered 
as the only means of closing the door against claims 
which, though perchance of slight importance at the 
outset, are magnified by the lapse of time into affairs 
of great moment. Guatemala, on the contrary, has 
constantly refused the tracing of limits, and has always 
labored for the preservation of the statu quo, thus 
leaving open a wide door for quarrels between private 
individuals, which subsequently become conflicts be- 

session of Cliiapas and Soconusco. The most apparent is, that the 
constitution of the Mexican Kepublic enumerates Chiapas (including So- 
conusco) among the States of the Union. Consequently there is a consti- 
tutional impediment, quite unsurmountable, for the Government of Mexico 
to discuss, before an arbitration or otliervvise, the untimely question now 
raised by Guatemala. She urges that the said government, to gratify some 
long-cherished fancies of Guatemalan politicians, should submit to trample 
upon the national constitution (and forget its dignity) by discussing, with- 
out any authority to do so, a point settled alike by that instrument and by 
time, the great legitimator of all possessions in the world, even when their 
title is less clear than that of Mexico to her present State of Chiapas. 



35 

tween governments. Would tlie scandals of Bejucal, 
and so many others, wliicli liave given occasion to 
complaints, and even now demand the attention of the 
two countries, have taken place if the dividing line 
had been clearly fixed ? But all the efforts of Mexico 
have been sterile in presence of the zeal with which 
Guatemala has sustained her fancied right to Chiapas 
and Soconusco. Hoping some day to recover these 
regions, or to obtain a pecuniary compensation for 
them, she has refused to put an end to an^'uncertainty 
harmful to both nations, and proposed the negotiation 
of treaties of a different character, which can be of no 
utility as long as the material possession, subject by 
law to the authority of each government, remains un- 
defined. It is true, as Your Excellency says, that in 
1854 Guatemala agreed to the incorporation of Chia- 
pas and Soconusco, but she did not consent to the 
actual tracing of the limits, insisting, as before, upon 
the maintenance of the statu quo, as may be seen in 
Article I of the Memorandum by Mr. Pavon: "The 
limits between the two republics shall continue to be 
what they now are^ This phrase clearly expresses the 
invariable idea of Guatemala, namely, not to trace her 
limits, and thus leave subsistino; all the causes of diffi- 

7 O 

culties, and all the elements of future conflicts, between 
the two nations. Moreover, the deference of Guate- 
mala in 1854 had for its basis the proposed payment 
of a debt which Mexico can not recognize, and a claim 
upon unoccupied lands which can not even be dis- 
cussed, since it has no foundation whatever. It is, in 
fact, difficult to discover the reasons which Guatemala 
has had for refusing the settlement of her limits, for it 
is not possible even to imagine that this refusal in„ 
volves the idea of maintaining the rights hitherto 



36 

alleged and the hopes hitherto cherished. It is, there- 
fore, absolutely indispensable to put an end to a con- 
troversy which has caused such evils to both countries, 
and threatens others still more serious for the future 
welfare of two republics needing to live in the most 
perfect harmony. 

Summing up all the argument of the present note, 
the following points have been proved : 

1. Chiapas was a province on terms of equality 
with the others which formed the captaincy-general of 
Guatemala. 

2. Chiapas, on the 3d of September, 1821, spon- 
taneously separated from Guatemala and. united her- 
self to Mexico. 

3. Chiapas, on the 12th of September, 1824, again 
united herself to the United States of Mexico, by the 
free vote of the majority of her inhabitants. 

4. Soconusco, in 1821, was a partido of the intend- 
ency of Chiapas, and as such united herself to the 
Mexican Empire. 

5. Soconusco, in 1824, was legitimately represented 
in the Supreme Junta of Chiapas, and freely voted for 
annexation to Mexico on the 3d of May. 

6. The act signed at Tapachula, on the 24th of 
July, 1824, was a revolutionary document, and was 
illegal from every point of view. 

7. Central America recognized the Supreme Jun- 
ta of Chiapas, and offered to respect its determina- 
tion. 

8. The decree of August 18, 1824, by which the 
Federal Congress declared that Soconusco, by virtue 
of herpronunciamienfo, had united with Central Amer- 
ica, was a usurpation of the rights of Mexico. 

9. The notes exchanged between the Ministers 



3r 

Alaman and Mayorga did not constitute a legal agree- 
ment. 

10. The decree of October 31, 1825, by modifying 
the essence of the propositions of the Mexican Minis- 
ter, left them without effect. 

11. The neutrality in which Soconusco remained 
de facto was many times violated by Guatemala. 

12. No act of Mexican authorities recognizing such 
neutrality could be valid, since any treaty required 
the approbation of Congress. 

13. Mexico was under no obligation torespect such 
neutrality. Consequently, when she occupied Soco- 
nusco in 1842, she infringed no international compact, 
and only made use of the right given her by the vote 
of May 3d, and the declaration of September 12, 1824 

14. Soconusco, in 1842, was free to unite herself 
again to Mexico ; for, even supposing legitimate the 
act of July, 1824, the district was thereby united 
to Central America, not to Guatemala ; therefore, 
when that federation was dissolved, Guatemala had 
no rights of any kind, 

15. The military pressure, the intrigues, and other 
abuses which Guatemala has imputed to Mexico are 
not proved, while, on the conti^ary, it is proved that 
in September, 1824, there were no Mexican troops in 
Chiapas, and that those commanded by Colonel Agua- 
yo in 1842 were invited thither by the inhabitants 
of Soconusco. 

16. Any supposable irregularity in the incorpora- 
tion of Chiapas and of Soconusco has heen entirely 
validated hy the constant union of those regions during 
fifty -one years in the first case^ and during thirty -three 
years in the second case, * in which lapse of time they 

* Now, in 1881, these periods are respectively 5V and 39 years. 



38 

Tiave not presented a single complaint nor indicated any 
repugnance to continue attached to the Mexican Re- 
public. 

17. Respecting tlie public lands, the claim of Gua- 
temala is entirely inadmissible, since slie lias no rights 
whatever upon the territory of Chiapas. 

18. The debt of Chiapas is included in that of 
Mexico, which is consequently not responsible for it 
to Guatemala ; from whom she might, on the contrary, 
more properly demand a certain amount, as the differ- 
ence between that debt and the general one of Cen- 
tral America. 

19. The delays of so many years in the settlement 
of this question are due to Guatemala, who has always 
opposed the tracing of limits, which has continually 
been urged by the Government of Mexico. 

The facts being thus cleared up, and the right of 
Mexico to Chiapas and Soconusco being solidly estab- 
lished, I proceed to treat of the question concerning 
the adjustment of limits between the frontier states of 
both republics, in order to terminate, in a practical 
manner, this prolonged subject of controversy. 

I renew to Your Excellency my very distinguished 
consideration. 

(Signed) J. M. LAFRAGUA. 

To His Excellency Mr. Ramon Uriaete, Envoy Extraordinary and 
Minister Plenipotentiary of the Bepublic of Guatemala.* 

* This dispatch has not been answered by Guatemala. 



DOCUMENT No. IV. 



SEAL OF THE MEXICAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: 

Section of America. 

Extract. 

The Minister of War lias transmitted to this de- 
partment, in a dispatch dated the 5th instant, a com- 
munication from the Governor of Chiapas dated the 
1st of October last, in which he says that he transmits 
a copy, containing 14 pages, of the depositions made 
by the criminals, Samuel Palmer and Florencio Garcia, 
and of the investigation made concerning their state- 
ment that the President of Guatemala favors the fili- 
bustering projects organized in that republic against 
Mexico. 

From these documents it appears that Palmer and 
Garcia, the former a negro from Belize and the latter 
a Spaniard, the manager of the coffee plantation of Don 
Joaquin Cdrdenas, near El Rodeo, Guatemala, formed 
a part of the band of invaders who sacked the town 
of Tuxtla Chico on the night of September 20, 1880, 
Garcia having acted as second in command. In their 
depositions they stated, among other things, that the 
expedition in question was organized and armed within 
the territory of Guatemala, with the knowledge of the 



40 

Commander of Malacatan, Don Joaquin Velasco, who 
promised the leader, Faustino Cardenas, that he would 
offer no obstacle, and that the plan had for object 
to overthrow the existing authorities of the state of 
Chiapas, and to proclaim Don Pantaleon Dominguez ; 
that the plan as well as the proclamations signed by 
Victor Fougier, an exile in that republic, were printed 
in Guatemala, but that these documents were thrown 
into a river when the invaders were overtaken by the 
Mexican troops sent in pursuit. Garcia added that 
they also carried a box with bombs, though he did 
not know for what purpose. 

In the record of the investigation made last March 
by the Judge of First Instance at Tapachula, appear 
the depositions of Dr. Charles E. Mordaunt, an Ameri- 
can citizen ; Jose Maria Chacon, resident at Tapachula ; 
Timoteo Leon, a Guatemalan by birth but Mexican 
by naturalization ; and Juan Maria Coutino, resident 
at Tapachula. 

Mordaunt testified that he knows from the state- 
ments of several exiles and of some Guatemalans that 
the President of that republic has aided and con- 
tinues to aid the revolutionists ; that having seen the 
invaders of Tuxtla Chico at the time of their first in- 
cursion, he saw them again in the town of El Rodeo, 
Guatemala, engaged in trade with a capital furnished 
them by the President of Guatemala according to 
their own statement, and that he knows by the evi- 
dence of his own eyes that, on the two occasions when 
the Department of Soconusco was invaded, the arms 
and ammunition employed belonged to the Guatema- 
lan army, that several Guatemalans accompanied the 
Mexican invaders, all of whom, on their return, were 
not molested but were aided by the said President. 



41 

Chacon testified that the President of Guatemala, 
Don Rufino Barrios, not only favors the filibusters but 
furnishes them arms, ammunition, and even explo- 
sive projectiles. This he knows from having been 
in December of last year at Costa Cuca, Guate- 
mala, with Basilio Saenz, of Tapachula, a fugitive 
from justice for crimes not political. Saenz informed 
him that President Barrios had given him $400 in 
cash, and loaned him $3,000 for two years without 
interest, on condition that he would head a party of 
filibusters who should take possession of Soconusco, 
causing to be signed in the towns petitions in favor 
of annexation to Guatemala. This Chacon believes 
to be true, because Barrios himself has proposed to 
give the witness money and ofiicial positions witli tlie 
same object of annexing Soconusco to Guatemala; 
tliat it is a notorious fact that President Bariios gives 
aid and comfort to all discontented Mexicans who ar- 
rtve at his capital for political reasons, on condition of 
tlieir taking up arms against Mexico, and that tbe 
week before last two small parties of Guatemalan sol- 
diers invaded Mexican territory near Cuatepec, having 
penetrated two leagues within the municipality of 
Ayutla. 

Timoteo Leon testified that it is true that President 
Barrios favors the filibusters who invade Mexico, which 
fact he knows because they are habitually organized 
and armed in Guatemalan towns in the presence of 
the autkorities, who' do nothing to impede them, al- 
thougk they kave at their command the telegraph by 
which they migkt give information. 

Lastly, Coutino gives a similar opinion, based upon 
th.e fact that the filibusters tkemselves have publicly 
b)oasted of the protection given them by President 



42 

Barrios, and that Faustino Cardenas, the leader in the 
sack of Tuxtla Chico, having been previously under 
arrest in Guatemala, was set at liberty in order to 
invade Mexico, and that, in all the attacks made upon 
Tuxtla Chico, the point of reunion of the invaders has 
been at San Vicente Canana, xery near the headquar- 
ters of the Commander of Malacatan, Don Joaquin 
Velasco, who aided them with money and arms, all 
which is public and notorious by the admission of the 
filibusters themselves. 

This document concludes with a dispatch from the 
judge, in which he excuses himself for the delay in 
sending the record of his investigation. 

(Signed) FELIX GALINDO, 

Chief of the Section of America^ 

Mexico, Noteniber 10, 1881. 



DOCUMENT No. V, 



A hrief summary of the co?itents of a hook puUisked hy Senor- 
Bon Matias Romero, hearing the title " Refutation of the 
Charges made against the Citizen Matias Romero hy the 
Government of Guatemala^ 

Among the principal complaints made by the Gov- 
ernment of Guatemala to the Government of Mexico^ 
respecting difficulties on the frontier of Soconusco, are 
those referring to the conduct of Mr. Matias Romero 
during the first two years that he resided on that fron- 
tier. These complaints were embodied in three notes, 
dated April 9, 12, and 14, 1875, addressed to the Mexi- 
can Minister of Foreign Affairs by the Guatemalan 
representative in Mexico, by order of General Jose 
Eufino Barrios, President of Guatemala, and printed 
as appendices to the "Memoir of the Mexican Foreign 
Office," bearing date December 4, 1875. Although 
the references made by the Mexican Minister to these 
complaints in the memoir in question were perfectly 
conclusive as to the degree of importance which should 
be attached thereto, Mr. Romero sought and obtained 
from the Foreign Office, under dates of July 31 and 
August 2, 1876, permission for the publication of an 
extended refutation of the Guatemalan charges, as an 
appendix to the Foreign Office memoir of that year. 



44 

This document, which was issued from the govern- 
ment press, consists of a quarto volume of three hun- 
dred and seventy-seven pages, of which one hundred 
and sixty-three are filled with Mr. Romero's refutation, 
and the remainder with eighty-three documents illus- 
trative of the text. 

This volume bears the title "Refutation of the 
Charges made against the Citizen Matias Romero by 
the Government of Guatemala." Mr. Romero, who is 
well known in the United States as the efficient Minister 
Plenipotentiary of Mexico during the war of interven- 
tion in that republic, was subsequently for several years 
Minister of Finances under Presidents Juarez and Diaz, 
member of the Federal Congress, and Postmaster-Gen- 
eral, and was recently instrumental in the organization 
in the United States of the Mexican Southern Rail- 
way Company, under the auspices of General U. S. 
Grant, who accompanied him to Mexico in the spring 
of 1881. 

Mr. Romero begins his refutation by an analysis of 
the charges made against him, which he divides into 
seventeen heads, each of which is separately consid- 
ered. The volume is divided into three parts. Part 

I is entitled " A Statement of my Conduct in Soconusco 
in Respect to General Barrios and Guatemala." Part 

II consists of a "Reply to the Charges made by Gen- 
eral Barrios," and Part III is devoted to a considera- 
tion of the conduct of General Barrios toward Mexico, 
especially in reference to the frontier question. 

At the outset, Mr. Romero cites the language em- 
ployed by the Chief Clerk of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Juan 
de Dios Arias, in the " Memoir of Foreign Affairs," 
bearing date December 4, 1875, and that of his prede- 
cessor, the lamented statesman, Mr. Jose Maria Lafra- 



45 

gua, in four notes addressed to the Guatemalan minis- 
ter, Mr. Uriarte, under dates of July 4 and 8 and 
August 11, 1875, all relating to the said charges. 
These communications explicitly declare that such 
charges are unjust; that they rest upon insufficient 
and erroneous data, and that they are expressed in 
terms unsuited to diplomatic correspondence. The 
Government of Guatemala was therefore formally in- 
vited to exhibit proofs of the said charges, which in- 
vitation, it is needless to remark, was not accepted. 

Mr. Romero then narrates at length the circum- 
stances attending his settlement in Soconusco. Hav- 
ing resigned the Mexican Ministry of Finance on June 
10, 1872, just before the death of President Juarez, on 
account of seriously impaired health, he thought it 
necessary to devote himself to active agricultural la- 
bors. His attention had been previously attracted to 
the Department of Soconusco, whose agricultural re- 
sources and capabilities for improvement he had al- 
ready been instrumental in promoting, by several fis- 
cal measures and by the publication of a memoir 
devoted to that subject. During a visit which Mr. 
Romero made to Soconusco, in September and Octo- 
ber, 1872, his favorable impressions were confirmed. 
He then made the acquaintance of General Jose Ru- 
fino Barrios, now President of Guatemala, making him 
a visit in Quezaltenango, and establishing with him 
relations of confidence, and even intimacy. General 
Barrios was highly pleased at the proposed establish- 
ment of Mr. Romero on the frontier of Soconusco, 
where he possessed, in Mexican territory, a hacienda 
called Malacate, which he offered for sale. General 
Barrios accompanied Mr. Romero on his return to 
Tapachula, the capital of Soconusco, where, at the in- 



46 

Btance of the latter, public demonstrations were made 
in his honor. At the request of General Barrios, Mr. 
Romero wrote a series of comments upon the Guate- 
malan project of a constitution, then under discussion. 
As the result of this first visit to Soconusco, al- 
though his resources did not permit the purchase of 
the hacienda of Malacate, he resolved to establish 
himself near Taj^achula, giving his chief attention to 
the cultivation of India-rubber. He arrived there 
definitively with his family in February, 1873, and in 
the following month made a visit to the capital of 
Guatemala. He found General Barrios provisionally 
in charge of the Presidency, to which he was formally 
elected two months later. The General received Mr. 
Romero with the greatest cordiality, expressed a 
desire that he should settle within the territory of 
Guatemala, offered him the necessary resources for the 
purchase of lands, and expressed a desire to become 
his partner in establishing a new coffee plantation 
on Mexican public lands adjacent to his hacienda of 
Malacate and to the Guatemalan frontier. The latter 
proposal alone was accepted by Mr. Romero, and an 
unsigned contract was drawn up. The confidence of 
General Barrios was at this time carried to the ex- 
treme of intrusting Mr. Romero with the dravving up 
of a decree establishing religious liberty in Guatemala 
in conformity with Mexican antecedents, and with the 
preparation of one or more editorial articles in defense 
of the provisional government of Barrios. 

Returning by land to Soconusco, Mr. Romero visited 
the hacienda of Malacate to inspect the lands proposed 
for the coffee plantation, and then devoted himself 
to the formation of his own India-rubber plantation, 
called the Hular de Zuchiate, on lands adjacent to the 



47 

eea. In August, '1873, lie again visited Malacate in 
company witli a government surveyor, and effected 
the denounceme.U and survey of a tract of public 
lands adequate for the contemplated coffee plantation 
to the north of Malacate, adjacent to the reputed 
frontier of Guatemala, but taking care that the lands 
in question should be exclusively on Mexican terri- 
tory. Contracts were made with laborers resident in 
the vicinity for planting corn and for clearing the 
land destined for the coffee plantation, to which the 
name of " Cafetal Juarez " was given. President Ba- 
rrios was duly and minutely informed by letters of all 
the steps taken in pursuance of his repeated requests. 

In January, 1874, General Barrios visited his Tia- 
oienda of Malacate and inspected, in company with 
Mr. Eomero, the lands comprising the " Cafetal Juarez." 
He then expressed the fear that a portion of those 
lands belonged to Guatemala, and indicated what he 
conceived to be the frontier between the two repub- 
lics in terms differing from what had been assumed 
as such by Mr. Eomero — namely, the course of the 
small river Petacalapa. As the result of his inspec- 
tion of the lands, General Barrios withdrew from the 
proposed partnership, leaving Mr. Eomero free to form 
the projected coffee plantation on his own account, 
under promise of efficacious co-operation from the 
Indian laborers resident within the frontier of Guate- 
mala. 

During this visit of General Barrios to Soconusco 
he was informed that three Guatemalan exiles, resid- 
ing at Tapachula, had formed a plot to assassinate him. 
Through the intervention of Mr. Eomero, those indi- 
viduals were arrested and kept in prison for some 
weeks. They were afterward liberated by the local 



48 

judge, against the opinion of Mr. Romero, on the 
ground of insufficient evidence. This circumstance 
highly di^ileased President Barrios, who habitually 
considered Mr. Romero responsible for everything that 
passed in Soconusco. 

After the return of General Barrios, Mr. Romero 
continued his labors in the formation of the coifee 
plantation called " Cafetal Juarez," counting upon the 
good-will of Barrios, repeatedly expressed in letters 
bearing date February and March, 1874. Various 
reports reached the ears of Mr. Romero that Barrios 
had stated that the said plantation was in Guatemalan 
territory, and that the cultivation should, therefore, 
not be permitted ; but the Guatemalan president 
denied in his letters the truth of these reports. On 
the 9th of May, however, the alcaldes of the Guate- 
malan town of Tajomulco proceeded to the " Cafetal 
Juarez" with 200 Indians, and, after reading an order 
from the political chief of San Marcos, Guatemala, 
cut down with their machetes all the young coffee-trees, 
and carried off prisoners to Guatemala the two men 
in charge of the plantation, one of whom was kept 
four days in the public prison of San Md,rcos. Mr. 
Romero was naturally averse to believe that this de- 
struction had been ordered by President Barrios. He 
immediately informed General Barrios by letter of the 
outrage committed on his estate, and received a prompt 
reply disavowing the act, and giving assurance that 
orders had been sent to the Indians in question to 
abstain from further molestations. 

The mayordomo of Mr. Romero, named Fermin 
Maldonado, on his return from his imprisonment in 
San Mdrcos, received information that a party of the 
Indians who had committed the former outrage had 



49 

again assembled in a hut at Altand, within Mexican 
territory. Desirous to avenge the wrongs he had suf- 
fered, he collected eight or nine laborers from the 
coffee plantation, and made an incursion to Altand. 
The Indians fled at his approach, and he proceeded to 
burn down three huts and carry off four boxes of 
corn. He also caught one of the Indians of Guate- 
mala, whom he sent prisoner to Tapachula, informing 
Mr. Eomero by letter of what he had done. The huts 
were of the kind that may readily be constructed by 
three or four men in a single day, and were accord- 
ingly valued at a dollar apiece. The corn was esti- 
mated to be worth eight dollars. The total valua- 
tion of the loss was, therefore, eleven or twelve dol- 
lars, but the event figures in the charges made by 
Greneral Barrios as the burning and sack of a Guate- 
malan town. Mr. Romero was ignorant of this act of 
his mayordomo^ which he at once condemned on re- 
ceiving information thereof. He wrote to the politi- 
cal chief of San Marcos offering to pay the damage 
incurred, and subsequently wrote in similar terms to 
President Barrios, disavowing all responsibility for 
the act of his mayordomo. 

Meanwhile [the Guatemalan exiles in Tapachula, 
three of whom had already been arrested, as before 
mentioned, for an alleged conspiracy against the life 
of General Barrios, were secretly preparing an invasion 
of Guatemala. The political chief of Tapachula, hav- 
ing received information of the fact, consulted Mr. 
Romero as to what should be done, and, by his advice, 
the leaders were arrested the same night. As there 
was not, however, sufficient legal evidence to justify 
their continued imprisonment, Mr. Romero wrote out 
a legal opinion to the effect that the President of 
4 



50 

Mexico should be solicited to expel them from the 
republic as " pernicious foreigners." This opinion, 
doubtless, displeased General Barrios, who desired 
more efficacious measures to be taken. An order was 
subsequently obtained from the governor of the State 
of Chiapas for sending the prisoners to the state capi- 
tal, but Captain Tellez, in command of a company of 
federal troops at Tapachula, refused to surrender them. 
The same officer co-operated with the prisoners respect- 
ing their projected invasion of Guatemala, seizing upon 
all the Guatemalan Indians in the vicinity to increase 
the ranks of his company. On the 27th of June the 
prisoners were allowed to give a ball in the house of 
Tellez, and, having intoxicated the federal troops, 
they were next morning placed under the orders of 
the Guatemalan exiles, nominally prisoners, for a fili- 
bustering expedition against Guatemala. They crossed 
the frontier the same day, committing various outrages 
and assassinations by the way, and on the following 
day were comj^letely routed, near San Marcos, by 
Colonel Lopez, the political chief of that place, already 
mentioned. Three of the leaders were killed in action ; 
four others were taken prisoners and were executed at 
San Mdrcos two months later. An attempt was sub- 
sequently made by General Barrios to connect Mr, 
Romero with this incursion. The facts were, that he 
had used all his influence to prevent its taking place, 
having even had an interview with the Guatemalan 
exiles while prisoners, in which he endeavored to dis- 
suade them from any step of the kind. Moreover, at 
the moment of the invasion, Mr. Romero was at San 
Mcircos, Guatemala, where he had gone to see the 
political chief. Colonel Lopez, respecting the destruc- 
tion of his coffee plantation, and he only escaped fall- 



51 

ing into the Lands of tlie filibusters by the accident of 
having taken a different road on his return. During 
this visit to San Mdrcos, Colonel Lopez avowed that 
the destruction of the " Cafetal Juarez " had been 
effected pursuant to orders of President Barrios, but 
he came to an understanding, apparently amicable, 
with Mr. Romero, as to the future conduct to be ob- 
served by both parties. 

Since Mr. Romero could not be proved to be di- 
rectly responsible for the filibustering expedition in 
question, General Barrios afterward undertook to hold 
him indirectly responsible, as having been the adviser 
of the sending of a Mexican federal garrison to Tapa- 
chula. It is true that, as early as September, 1871, 
before having visited Soconusco, Mr. Romero suggest- 
ed, in an official document, the sending of such a force, 
and that, during the early part of his residence in 
Tapachula (September, 1873), he repeated the sugges- 
tion. This was, perhaps, the cause of the sending of 
the first installment of federal troops, consisting of but 
sixty men, who arrived in November, 1873. Unfortu- 
nately, through the ignorance and inaptitude of their 
commander, Captain Tellez, these men were, for the 
most part, seduced into the filibustering expedition 
against Guatemala, as above mentioned. The plan of 
sending such a force had, however, been warmly ap- 
proved by General Barrios in letters to Mr. Romero. 
After the events above referred to, Mr. Romero solicit- 
ed the sending of a more numerous federal force, under 
an officer of greater intelligence and confidence. In 
fact, a small battalion of federal infantry was sent 
from Acapulco, under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Antonio Ponce de Leon, and arrived in Tapachula 
early in September, 1874. That officer had instruc- 



52 

tions to repel any invasion of Mexican territory by 
Guatemalans — instructions, doubtless, due in part to 
the destruction of Mr. Romero's plantation, whicli liad 
created considerable interest in Mexico, and liad been 
the subject of two official investigations. Colonel 
Ponce de Leon naturally wished to become acquainted 
with the line generally considered as the actual fron- 
tier with Guatemala, and invited Mr. Komero to ac- 
company him. With an escort of ten soldiers they 
visited, in November, 1874, the " Cafetal Juarez," and 
adjacent localities, taking care not to pass the reputed 
frontier of Guatemala. Nevertheless, this reconnais- 
sance gave great alarm to the frontier authorities of 
Guatemala, and was magnified by General Barrios into 
an outrage against that republic. 

Previous to this event, and immediately after his 
return from San Mdrcos, in July, 1874, Mr. Romero, 
in fulfillment of a promise made to Colonel Lopez, 
addressed communications to the municipalities of 
Tajomulco and Sibinal, the authorities of which had 
particijDated in the destruction of his property. In 
these documents he gave his reasons for considering 
the lands in question to be Mexican territory, and, 
without entering further upon subjects of controversy, 
offered to pay the damages caused by the reprisals 
made by Maldonado at Altand. These documents 
were sent by the municipalities to Colonel Lopez, at 
San Mtircos, and by him to General Barrios. They 
elicited an angry reply from Colonel Lopez, in which 
the tenor of these documents was treated as an offense 
of sedition against Guatemala, which should be dealt 
with by the courts, and it was insinuated that Mr. 
Romero was an accomplice of the recent filibustering 
expedition. 



53 

Meanwhile, Mr. Romero liad resolved to desist 
from tlie purchase of the lands forming the coffee plan- 
tation, but his agent in Mexico had already made pay- 
ment of the price to the government, and an official 
title had been issued to him in August, 1874, by which 
the Mexican Grovernment became the guarantee that 
the lands were really Mexican territory. The posses. 
sion of this document gave him an unquestionable 
right to Mexican protection, but he nevertheless re- 
solved not to solicit such intervention, and to leave 
the territorial question to be decided by a treaty of 
limits. Consequently, he did not make any demand 
for diplomatic redress, nor even address any complaint 
on the subject to the Mexican newspapers. From 
other sources, however, those papers received informa- 
tion on the subject, and the members of Congress from 
Chiapas spontaneously addressed a joint complaint on 
the subject to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These 
publications and the complaint in question were wrong- 
ly attributed by President Barrios to direct efforts on 
the part of Mr. Romero, and caused great indignation 
on his part. In revenge, he caused to be written a 
letter from Guatemala to the Mexican journal the 
" Monitor," in which the destruction of the coffee plan- 
tation was described as a very small affair, and Mr. 
Romero was represented as a heartless speculator in 
international dissensions. In reply to this letter Mr. 
Romero, for the first time, addressed to the " Monitor " 
his own version of the facts, taking care, however, not 
to inculpate General Barrios, to whom he sent a copy. 
At the same time, he complained to General Barrios, 
by letter, of the attacks made upon him in the press, 
and received a reply in which the President of Guate- 
mala explicitly denied all knowledge thereof, and ex- 



54 

pressed his full confidence and esteem, as was his 
custom. Until February, 1875, General Barrios, in his 
frequent letters upon business affairs, continued to 
write in similar terms, so that Mr. Romero was tem- 
porai'ily satisfied of the loyalty of his friendship. 

At the close of 1874 the Indians of Tacand, Gua- 
temala, destroyed the boundary-post of Pinabete, and 
erected another at Cuilco Viejo, eight leagues to the 
south. By order of Colonel Ponce de Leon it was 
replaced in February, 1875, the new one being de- 
stroyed. A few days later the Indians again destroyed 
the boundary-post. It was a second time replaced in 
March, and was soon afterward destroyed a third time- 
Although Mr. Romero had no share in the acts of the 
federal commander, and was absent from Tapachula at 
the time of the second expedition to replace the boun- 
dary-post, he was held responsible in Guatemala for 
all that had occurred, and even charged with having 
intoxicated Colonel Ponce de Leon, in order to per- 
suade him to violate the territory of Guatemala. In 
point of fact Mr. Romero declined a written invitation 
from the said colonel to accompany him on the expe- 
dition in question, and gave an opinion against the 
proposed replacement of the boundary-post. 

In February, 1875, there was established at Ta- 
pachula, by the efforts of Mr. Romero, a printing 
press, from which was issued under his direction a 
small weekly journal, the " Soconuscense," of which 
only twenty numbers were issued. No attack upon 
Guatemala or upon President Barrios ever appeared 
in its columns, where the boundary troubles were 
spoken of with extreme moderation. Nevertheless, the 
official journal of Guatemala subsequently accused Mr. 
Romero of having published therein a multitude of 



00 



lies and calumnies intended to promote a rupture be- 
tween Mexico and Guatemala. Mr. Romero's contri- 
butions to tliat paper were few, and were signed by 
his name. 

In January, 1875, Mr. Romero learned tliat ten 
Guatemalan Indians, who had been working on his 
coffee plantation, had been carried off prisoners by the 
authorities of the neighboring Guatemalan village of 
Toquian, for the crime of having dared to work there 
against their orders. Mr. Romero at once started for 
the plantation, and on the following day Colonel Ponce 
de Leon, hearing of the case, set out for that planta- 
tion with eighty men of the federal troops. Mr. Ro- 
mero met him on his return two days later, and per- 
suaded him to turn back without having reached the 
frontier. Nevertheless, this incident was represented 
by order of General Barrios as a new outrage com- 
mitted upon Guatemalan territory. 

In April, 1875, Mr. Romero left Tapachula for 
Mexico, to take his seat in Congress as deputy for 
Soconusco. Soon after his arrival he learned that the 
Guatemalan Minister, Don Ramon Uriarte, had ad- 
dressed to the Foreign Office three communications, by 
order of President Barrios, accusing him of being an 
incendiary, a plunderer, a filibuster, etc. As the facts 
upon which these charges are based have all been pre- 
sented in the preceding narrative of Mr. Romero's resi- 
dence in Soconusco, it is unnecessary to consider these 
charges in detail, as Mr. Romero does in the Second 
Part of his Refutation. 

In the Third Part of that document, Mr. Romero, 
turning the tables upon his accuser, produces formi- 
dable evidence to show the despotic and unprincipled 
character of the ruler of Guatemala, his cruelty toward 



56 

the laboring classes of Guatemala, the utter lack of 
guarantees on the part of the unfortunate residents of 
that republic, the duplicity of General Barrios as a 
part of his methods of government, his unbounded 
ambition, and especially his fixed design, long since 
formed, of disputing the Mexican title to Soconusco 
and Chiapas. In this publication, bearing date in 
1876, is correctly predicted and outlined (pages 
158-161) the hostile conduct recently observed by 
Guatemala toward Mexico in regard to the question 
of limits. It is very remarkable that the recent at- 
tempt on the part of Guatemala to obtain the inter- 
vention of the United States should have been indi- 
cated five years ago in this document, which must be 
well known to General Barrios, though the Govern- 
ment of the United States is hitherto probably quite 
ignorant of its existence. Says Mr. Romero : 

" It (the Government of Guatemala) has gone so 
far as to imagine that, in case of a war, Guatemala 
might celebrate a treaty of alliance with the United 
States, with the object of carrying on a joint war 
against Mexico and dividing between them the spoils. 
It would not be strange, much less impossible, that, 
under certain circumstances, which are fortunately not 
probable at this time, the United States might wage 
against Mexico another war as unjustifiable and as 
disastrous as that of Texas ; but whoever knows the 
position occupied in the world by the United States, 
the essential difi'erence between the policy of their 
Government and that of Guatemala, the national pride 
of their people, and various other circumstances, which 
I consider it unnecessary to enumerate, will come to 
the conclusion that, if unfortunately the United States 
ever declare war upon Mexico, they will do it for mo- 



b1 

tives of their own and not for those of any other 
nation ; in their own name and not as allies of Guate- 
mala. It is really the height of blindness to imagine 
that Guatemala, by stimulating the greed of the 
United States, could drag them so low as to convert 
them into an appendix to herself ! " 

Yet this apparently is what the Government of 
Guatemala attempted to do in the summer of 1881, 
from which attempt she did not desist, even upon the 
advent of the administration of President Arthur. 



PRINCIPAL EVENTS AFFECTING THE RELATIONS 
BETWEEN MEXICO AND GUATEMALA. 



1821. February 24tli. — Plan of Iguala, by whicb General Iturbide 

proclaimed the independence of Mexico. 
1821. September 3d. — Adhesion of Chiapas to the plan of Iguala, 

and proclamation of annexation to Mexico. 
1821. September 8th. — Oath of independence from Spain taken by 

authorities of Chiapas. 
1821. September 15th. — Guatemala declares her independence from 

Spain. 
1821. September 26th. — Chiapas declares her absolute separation 

from Guatemala. 
1821. September 27th. — Entry of Iturbide into the city of Mexico, 

and formation of a provisional government. 
1821. October 22d. — Chiapas demands of Mexico the recognition of 

her separation from Guatemala. 

1821. November 12th. — The Government of Mexico accepts the an- 

nexation of Chiapas. 

1822. January 6th. — Guatemala signs an act of union with Mexico. 
1822. January 15th. — The regency of Mexico proclaims the perpetual 

incorporation of Chiapas into the Mexican Empire. 

1822. February 4th. — Formal incorporation of Guatemala into the 

Mexican Empire. 

1823. Guatemala separates from Mexico. 

1824. May 3d. — Soconusco, lawfully represented in the Supreme 

Junta of Chiapas, voted freely for her annexation to Mexico. 
1824. May 26th. — The congress of Mexico issues an act declaring 
the liberty of Chiapas to annex herself either to Mexico or 
Guatemala. 



59 

1824, September 12tli. — Chiapas, by the free vote of the majority 
of its inhabitants, solemnly ratified its final incorporation 
to Mexico, and in the first Mexican constitution was named 
as part and parcel of the latter republic. 

1824. September 12th. — Solemn declaration that Soconusco was in- 

cluded in the province of Chiapas, and united with it to 
Mexico. 

1825. January 25th. — Guatemala proposes with its troops to occupy 

Tapachula (Soconusco). 
1832. Guatemala violates with her troops the territory of Soconusco. 
1832. The Mexican Government sends to Guatemala a minister to 

settle the question of boundaries, but without effect. 

1839. Guatemala manifests the intention to include Soconusco in 

one of her states. 

1840. The Alcalde of Tapachula (Soconusco) asks protection from 

Mexico against Guatemala. 

1842. Mexico occupies Soconusco with its troops, in virtue of the 
solicitations of its inhabitants, of the free vote cast on the 
3d of May, 1824, and the declaration of the 12th of Sep- 
tember of the same year. 

1842. The Guatemalan Government, through the British consul in 
Guatemala, applies to the English Government for media- 
tion. 

1842. October 10th. — The English minister in Mexico, without in- 
structions from his government, inquires of the Mexican 
Government whether English mediation would be favorably 
received, and the Government of Mexico answers that there 
is no need therefor, as Soconusco is clearly a part of the 
Mexican possessions. 

1853. The Mexican Government sends another minister to Guatemala 

for the settlement of the question of limits, but without 
success, in consequence of the opposition of Guatemala. 

1854. The Guatemalan Government manifests a disposition to re- 

nounce its alleged rights to Chiapas and Soconusco, but on 
condition that Mexico should recognize in its favor the debt 
of that province; which Mexico declined to do in 1875, 
alleging that the debt, if any, should be recognized in favor 
of private creditors and not of the Guatemalan 'nation. 
1873. October 20th. — The Mexican Government declares that it can 
not enter into any discussion on its right to Chiapas and 
Soconusco. 



60 

1874. May 7tli. — Guatemalan Indians destroy Mr. Matias Romero's 

coffee plantation, situated in Mexican territory. 

1875. February. — Residents of Guatemala destroy the boundary- 

mark called " Pinabete," and build another near Cuilco 
Viejo. 

1877. September 7th. — A convention is concluded in Mexico creating 

a joint commission of Mexican and Guatemalan engineers, 
in order to study the dividing line of the two countries on 
the eastern limit of Soconusco and Chiapas, with which 
Guatemala implicitly recognized that the rights of Mexico 
to the state of Chiapas were out of question. 

1878. October. — A band, headed by Margarito Barrios, a Guatemalan 

officer, invades the Mexican territory at the point called 
" Tonintan^." 

1879. December l7th. — Thirty-five filibusters coming from Guate- 

mala attack the Mexican village Tuxtla Chico. 

1880. September. — Another band, consisting of forty filibusters from 

Guatemala, surprise again Tuxtla Chico. 

1880. December. — The political chief of San Marcos (a department 

of Guatemala), at the head of two hundred men, invades 
Mexico, destroys the Pinabete boundary-mark, erects an- 
other one several leagues within Mexican territory, and 
hoists thereon the Guatemalan flag. 

1881. June 16th. — The Secretary of State addresses a note to the 

American minister in Mexico, saying that the Government 
of the United States, at the request of Guatemala, offers 
its mediation on the question of limits. 

1881. July 9th. — Conference of the American minister in Mexico 
with the Mexican Secretary of State on the proposed medi- 
ation of the United States. 

1881. July 25th. — Memorandum by Mr. Mariscal on said conference. 



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